“They know you didn’t kill him,” Damon reassured her. “What on earth possessed youto go there? Why was Madoc fool enough to let you?”

“I was only trying to help,” Diana said defensively.

“Thanks,” Damon said, for diplomatic reasons. There was no point in contradicting her, even though it was a blatant lie. “I’m sorry you got involved in this, Di—but I’ll do my best to make sure that you get out clean.”

“If the Eliminators are after you,” she told him sharply, “I’m hardly likely to stand idly by and let them get you, am I? Just because we fell out over private matters doesn’t mean that I want you hurt.”

For the sake of eavesdroppers, Damon said: “As soon as Madoc contacts me I’ll tell him to turn himself in and hand the VE pak to Interpol. I’ll pay for his lawyer and any fine he incurs. Neither of us ever intended our investigation to overstep the limits of the law, and I’ll make certain that there are no further transgressions.”

“And what then?” she asked, presumably hoping that he might have an olive branch ready to extend to her.

“I might have to go away for a while,” he said.

“Where?” she wanted to know. She was trying hard to cling to a forgiving mood—or at least the appearance of one—but all her resentments were still bubbling away beneath the surface.

“I don’t know. I’ve been out of touch with my family for too long; it might be a good idea to rebuild some bridges. If Karol and Silas really are dead I ought to see Eveline, even if it means a trip into space. There’s just the two of us now, it seems—and I hear that one can get a very different perspective on things from L-Five. One that helps a lot of things become clear.”

Diana looked at him as if she thought he might be taunting her. In her view, the first person he ought to be seeing with a view to putting things right was her. “And thenwhat?” she said, not bothering to apply the brake to the escalation of her anger.

“I don’t know, Di,” Damon said, refusing to be drawn. “I haven’t thought any further ahead than that. Just sit tight for a while, okay? You’ll be out soon.”

As soon as she realized that he had no intention of sticking around for a row, her rising anger melted into mere anxiety. “Don’t go,” she said swiftly. “We really need to talk, Damon—to straighten things out.”

“ Thosethings are already straightened out,” he said as gently as he could. “None of this concerns you, Di. I didn’t know you’d gone to Madoc when I asked him to help me. I suppose I’d have asked him anyway, because he was the one who seemed best placed to help me out—but to be honest, Di, your involvement is a complication I could well do without. Let’s leave things as they are, shall we?”

“You ungrateful bastard!” she howled as the anger returned in full force. “After all I’ve done for—”

“I don’t have time for this, Di,” Damon said brutally—and broke the connection.

He remained silent and still in the ensuing darkness for a few moments while he collected himself, and then he returned himself to one of his own customized VEs: one which made it appear that he was imprisoned within a vast multifaceted gem. He set up his other messages on a virtual lectern and began to scroll through them tiredly, fearful of finding some Eliminator threat that would further intensify his confusion and anxiety. Mercifully, nothing of that kind seemed to be lurking among the more usual junk.

Had he been in a more conventional holding pattern Damon would have noticed the flicker earlier, but it hardly showed up against the dazzling crystalline background and its first effect was to communicate an unfocused and near-subliminal awareness that something was slightly out of kilter. He glanced around anxiously for a moment or two, wondering whether there was some kind of glitch in his code reader, before he realized what was happening—at which point he returned his attention to the lectern and tried to look as if he were engrossed in the routine business of informational triage.

Having dumped all the electronic junk and sorted the scant remainder, Damon called Karol’s base at Molokai, to ask for news of the men injured in the explosion aboard the Kite. The man summoned by the AI answerphone to take the call evidently knew who Damon was, although Damon didn’t recall seeing him on Molokai, but he seemed to have classified Damon as an outsider, if not a hostile witness. He gave a brusque rundown of the injuries sustained by crewmen Damon had never met but said that Karol hadn’t yet been found, dead or alive.

Damon put on a show of profuse apologies and deep concern, in the course of which he asked his impatient informant for permission to switch the call into one of his own VEs. When the other shrugged his shoulders Damon decanted them into a pleasantly moonlit meadow. The signal hidden within the flicker was easier to read there, but Damon carefully gave no indication that he was paying attention to anything other than the tense features of Karol’s associate.

He learned nothing of interest except that Rajuder Singh had made a full recovery from his “accidental injuries” and had joined in the search for Karol—or for Karol’s body. His informant didn’t react to the news that Silas Arnett had been found dead.

“Have you got the centipedes out of the island’s systems?” Damon asked mischievously. “It must have been very inconvenient to have the elevator out of commission.”

“Everything is under our full control once again,” the other informed him brusquely, “but we still have a great deal of work to do. I must go now.”

“I’ve a lot to do myself,” Damon assured him, having made his own decisions. “I’ll call again for further news of Karol.”

When he came out from under the hood Damon immediately went to the bathroom and took a shower. He scrubbed himself as thoroughly as he could, although he knew full well that there were bugs on the market nowadays that no amount of scrubbing could remove. He had to hope that the people who’d taken him to the foothills of Olympus and lied to him about his ability to fly hadn’t been able to see any reason for getting under his skin—or that if anything hadbeen planted under his skin his own internal technology had been able to take care of the intrusion.

He went into the bedroom to put on a fresh suitskin, but he didn’t take his beltpack or sidepouch from the bedside table where he’d laid them down. The only things he picked up were two swipecards that had been lurking at the back of a drawer let into the beside table; these he placed in a pocket in the lower element of the suitskin.

After leaving the apartment Damon stopped the elevator at street level instead of going down into the car park. He went out into the street, nodding politely to Building Security’s desk man as he passed by, and ambled along the crowded pavement, checking the reflections in a number of plate-glass windows just in case he was dealing with people who thought that the unsophisticated approach was best.

By the time he’d taken three turns he had identified the man who was following him. It seemed infinitely more likely that the tail was one of Yamanaka’s men rather than an Eliminator, but Damon knew that no one could prove that he had even considered the possibility, and he wasn’t feeling much better disposed toward the forces of law and order than he was to crazy assassins.

Damon took another turn down a service alley cluttered with recycling bins that had been richly fed with the litter of a dozen stores and businesses. He had plenty of time to duck out of sight behind the second bin before his pursuer turned the corner.

The man who moved furtively into the alley, anxiously craning his neck for some sign of his target’s passage, was at least five centimeters taller than Damon and eight or ten kilos heavier. Damon knew that if he werea cop he’d also have taken lessons in the art of self-defense—but Damon had a much more extensive education in the art of attack. When his follower reached the dump bin Damon went for him without delay, aiming his first kick at the inside of the man’s knee and the first upward sweep of his hand at the Adam’s apple.